Premier1 Initiates Gravity Surveys to Uncover Gold in WA's Murchison Region
Premier1 has launched advanced gravity surveys at its Abbotts North gold project, located in Western Australia's Murchison region. This strategic program is specifically designed to enhance the structural understanding around the Rochefort prospect, a promising gold target in this emerging mining area.
Targeting High-Grade Gold Deposits
The company aims to use high-resolution geophysical data generated by the surveys to fast-track priority drill targets at Rochefort. This prospect is situated just 20 kilometres north of New Murchison Gold's Crown Prince project, which is valued at $700 million and currently holds 277,000 ounces of gold at an impressive grade of 3.8 grams per tonne (g/t).
Rochefort already exhibits a coherent gold-in-soil anomaly spanning 400 metres by 350 metres, accompanied by high-grade rock chips that peak at 11.7 g/t gold. An orientation survey to test extensions of this anomaly under shallow cover has recently been completed, with assay results expected shortly.
Historical Context and Exploration Potential
The Abbotts North project lies within the long-overlooked Abbotts greenstone belt in the northern Murchison, part of the same productive corridor that hosts the Crown Prince deposit. Historically, mining near the Abbotts centre, 35 kilometres north of Meekatharra, yielded exceptional grades—approximately 41,000 ounces at 31 g/t gold from shallow quartz reefs. However, the broader belt has seen minimal modern exploration on Premier1's ground.
Past work in the area was limited to reconnaissance, soil sampling, and minor rotary air blast drilling, leaving key structural corridors largely untested at depth. Premier1's exploration manager, Paul Smith, noted that Rochefort displays all the classic signatures of a significant gold system, sitting within highly fractionated and altered quartz dolerites known for generating strong gold flows in tightly folded ultramafic rock sequences.
Comparative Scale and Future Prospects
Premier1 states that the surface footprint of Rochefort, while small, compares in scale to early-stage anomalies at high-grade deposits such as the Golden Mile, Rosemont, and Paddington mines. The commencement of the gravity survey marks a critical step toward maiden drill testing, with the company also actively conducting reverse circulation (RC) drilling at its Yalgoo gold project in the southwest.
Recently, Premier1 initiated about 3,700 metres of RC drilling at the Mt Kersey gold prospect in the prolific Yalgoo greenstone belt, one of the few remaining gold targets in Western Australia that have been barely explored. With gravity surveys refining targets, gold results imminent, and maiden drilling on the horizon, Premier1's Abbotts North programs are revitalising a region ripe for gold discovery in Western Australia.
